Two families have been taken into custody in recent months in unrelated… (Jail photos. )

August 2, 2012|By Juan Ortega, Sun Sentinel

With the latest crackdowns on pain clinics, authorities are bringing attention to a different drug-dealing dynamic: Kingpins seeking riches by partnering with their relatives.

Of the dozens of pill mill suspects recently arrested in three investigations across South Florida, at least nine were found to be related to their alleged accomplices, officials say.

Criminals rely on their loved ones because they need people they can trust to run large operations, and because they want them to share in their millions of ill-gotten dollars, law enforcement agencies and legal experts say.

Still, there's no guarantee that family members won't become stool pigeons.

"Family can turn on each other as much as anybody else," said Ronald Akers, a criminology/sociology professor at the University of Florida. "The reason that criminals find relatives is that that bond is there, but that doesn't always work out for them."

Bob Breeden, assistant special agent in charge with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said criminals think they have little choice but to hire a relative.

"Most people think they can trust family members," he said. "It's not like you can advertise for employees to do these illegal activities."

The three recent family-involved takedowns:

In late June, a Lake Worth auto dealer, his son and his three brothers were busted in a drug-trafficking and doctor-shopping ring in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, according to FDLE. Tuesday, the tally of arrests in that pill-mill group rose to 15, the agency said. No additional family members have been identified in the group.

The car dealership owner, Frank Wooden Sr., is the alleged drug ringleader, accused of gathering pills bought in South Florida and taking them to north Florida and Georgia to sell, the FDLE said.

On June 27 in Broward, brothers-in-law Lewis Stouffer and Craig Turturo were arrested for allegedly participating in a scheme where corrupt doctors dispensed millions of pills without medical justification to patients, including drug addicts, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

On June 12, Turturo's older brother, Frank Turturo, and Frank Turturo's wife, Bernice, were arrested during a raid of their Pompano Beach pain clinic, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office.

The couple is accused of buying pills at reduced prices from mail-order pharmacies and illegally reselling them to patients — at double the cost and with additional service fees, a sheriff's affidavit said. A confidential source said Bernice Turturo occasionally instructed patients to line up at a checkout window and quickly went down the line filling out prescriptions that had been pre-signed by a doctor, the affidavit said.

Investigations against pain clinics have evolved over the years, going from targeting drug addicts and pill users to bringing down those who profit from the crimes, such as the owners and doctors, said Broward sheriff's Lt. Frank Ballante.

"You find that they work like organized crime," Ballante said. "So we're going to investigate them like organized crime."

Frank Turturo is pleading not guilty. His lawyer said Turturo and all his clinic staff complied with all state and federal regulations.

Of the latest multi-agency operations, authorities haven't said whether any suspects have incriminated their relatives. Generally, pill mill suspects try not to incriminate family, though it doesn't always work, officials said.

Sources "provide us information on criminal activities going on, but they protect the fact that their family was involved in this same criminal activity," the FDLE's Breeden said. "The bottom line is they tell us about others, but they don't give up their family member."

Still, authorities can circumvent relatives' lack of cooperation. One way is finding other participants of the pill mill schemes who are willing to help, arrest reports show.

In some cases, the demise of illegal enterprises does get relatives talking, records show.

In March, Francine Sweet and four of her relatives were sentenced to federal prison for running a pill mill from the family pharmacy in Plantation — but not before Sweet turned against her husband.

Sweet said in court that she made "the critical mistake" of marrying pharmacist Daniel Sweet, saying he had duped her. And Sweet's daughter, Jessica Marshall, turned against her whole family: Marshall cooperated with prosecutors in exchange for a reduced sentence.

In August 2011, pain clinic kingpin Jeffrey George agreed in Palm Beach County court to cooperate in a federal case against his twin brother and partner Christopher George, as well as 31 former doctors and lieutenants in a $40 million pill-mill operation the brothers built.

Christopher George has since been sentenced to more than 17 years in prison. Jeffrey George has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison.

Louis Ferrante, author of "Mob Rules: What the Mafia Can Teach the Legitimate Businessman," said criminals hire family for the same reason that legitimate employers do. It goes beyond trust issues, he said.

"They got something good, and they want to spread the wealth within the family," said Ferrante, a former mobster who lives in New York. "It's all about the Benjamins if they're raking in $30,000 to $40,000 a day."